---

Sweet, oh sweet, retribution;
We call out your name.
Claiming satisfaction and salvation
From the agony, for the fame.
For you we cry out,
Deservingly too.
Thank you for this bout,
We know what to do.
He’ll pay the sum,
Since that first crime,
And of all their crimes since.

---

As the referee’s hand came crashing down for the third time, and the crowd was hushed, he couldn’t help but smile. Rolling off the sweat-drenched frame of Chaos, Danny Imperial lies on his back against the white mat of the ring. He throws his head back, pearly white teeth reflecting the glaring stadium lights as a cackle erupts from his mouth into the air.

With his entrance song still blaring through the speakers, it seemed as if only a second had gone by. Clutching his waist and pulling himself up onto a seated position, Danny Imperial had a wonderful smile on his face. He throws his other hand into the air, welcoming a stream of cheers and woops from the crowd.

“Thank you, thank you very much! We’re back, and ready to clean up!”

---

The screen fizzles to life, to a close-up of a terrifying set of teeth. With canines that almost touched with the jaws completely extended. A roar that reverberated through your heart erupted from the exposed throat, as the head rolled from left to right. Finally closing its mouth, the lion stared dead into the center of the camera. Slowly, the frame zooms out, revealing the full body of the lion, built… No sculpted to perfection by nature or some higher power. The muscles on its back shoulders boasted a powerful running force, capable of leaping a distance of thirty-six feet forward to take down its prey. As it’s jaws clenched, muscles flexing along the face made it hard to doubt it’s crushing bite force. The beast screamed power.

The chin of the magnificent creature was damp, causing it’s fur to clump slightly and drips of fresh water to drip off it. The lion’s head jerked then, in one fluid motion, causing its bright orange mane to beat in the motion. The water before it rippled, and the beast’s eyes narrowed. Another ripple, and a pair of green eyes surfaced. In a split second, a pair of more powerful jaws shot out of the water, lunging towards the front paws of the lion. Releasing an ear-splitting roar, the lion jumped back on its hind legs, avoiding the bone-shattering bite and swiping down on the crocodile with ferocity. As the claws of the creature extend out from its paws, the crocodile doesn’t have the dexterity to shirk away. The aquatic killer absorbs the full brunt of the paw strike and is almost thrown completely out of the water.

The lion winds up its hind legs, crouching low before leaping forward and landing, mounting the crocodile. With two more paw strikes, and crunch of its teeth, the lion speedily disposes of its adversary. Kicking off from the lifeless crocodile, the lion walks away from the watering hole. As the beast walks away from the scene of the crime, the camera continues to zoom out. A dead gazelle lies on one side, clearly mauled and half eaten. A wounded wildebeest is a few feet away, grunting and moaning as a gash on its neck continues to drip with blood. The watering hole reeked of death. From across the watering hole, a lone antelope stood, mouth hanging slightly open, having witnessed it all.



The lion’s fur is marred with scars and fresh blood, as it begins to lick at the remnants of blood of its victims, the camera pans out even further. The sound of a click breaks through the speakers and the scene drastically changes, to the face of none other than Danny Imperial. With a smile stretching from one ear to the next, and a face painted in the classic black and white, Danny’s face is ridiculously close to the camera.

“Hello there, our loving fans, it’s such a joy to be able to speak to you again! Since our expected defeat of Chrissy, we haven’t had the opportunity express every ounce of gratitude we felt. Oh and did we feel it! You can’t begin to understand the intensity with which blood pounded through our ears, the euphoric feel of every cheer and chant that emanated from the masses. You drove us to that victory, you lifted us, the wind that carried our far-reaching wings to victory. For that, we must thank you.”

Danny gives the camera his best smile, he takes in a deep breath that fills his lungs, before letting it out with a guttural purr.

“Well, back to your scheduled broadcast of predators in the wild, I hope you enjoy it!”

The screen flickers to static once more before revealing our lion once more. Powerful hind legs jutting up and down as it walks forward. A voice cuts in over the audio, giving David Attenborough-esque commentary. The lion is resting under the shade of a nearby tree, head held high with a slight nervous look in its eyes. Just then you realize what’s wrong with this image, the lion is alone, surrounded by nothing but brown grass and empty space. He has no pride.

“The African lion is one of the world’s most vicious predators. Thought it is true that the male lion prefers to leave most of the hunting to the lionesses in his pride, the patriarchal head of the pride, is a force to be reckoned with. Let’s just say, if you got close enough to this magnificent beast and he wasn’t in a good mood, you wouldn’t make it to your next birthday. King of the jungle, they call the lion, epitomizing pride, strength, family and ferocity.

It’d of course be an honor to be described as one of these wonderful beings. I’m sure at this point, you’re all waiting for us to draw comparisons between the incredible Danny Imperial (That’s us, if you weren’t already aware) and this terrifying beast. Alas, our days of predictability are past us! That, our dear friends, would be simply too easy to do. No, no, you see, this Lion isn’t us. It’s our opponent come Warfare, none other than Jimmy Caedus. Fitting, don’t you think?

Jimmy, possibly the most dominant TV-Champion, stepped up and took the Universal Championship by force, leaving his opponents in shambles behind him. Much like the lion, any marks on him came from the utter decimation of his opponents, and not harm he’d had taken really. For a long time, Jimmy was untouchable, he was undefeatable, he truly was a king among men in the XWF. A competitor without comparison that pulled no punches and left no meat on the bone when he was done with you. Terrifying.

He went on to start his own little pride. Originally two brilliant lionesses, Robert Main and Michael Graves. Power attracts power, and then Hart Champion Main and undeniably dangerous Graves seemed to help Caedus cement his seat of power. One thing was for sure, there wasn’t a shortage of pride in this… Pride. A hunger for power led to the inclusion of whiny resident sycophant duo Chris Chaos and Thaddeus Duke. Little did Caedus realize that rather than picking up another pair of bitches, he’d picked two young teething males. Can you blame him? Between the amount Chris bitches and Duke’s skincare routine, we’d confuse them for bitches after a drink or two… Too.

They cost Caedus his pride and his place on top of the food chain, picking up a series of losses and on the brink of slipping into obscurity, the lone lion continues to trudge on. He’s no less dangerous, don’t get us wrong, but he IS less driven. Threatening to leave, the lion seemingly lost hope. But he’s no less dangerous, and he most definitely isn’t dead yet. Clinging to his past, trying to hold his head high with the pride of being the lion that he is, Caedus fights on.

However, one thing Caedus didn’t count on is the fact that whilst he’s a lion, he most definitely isn’t THE king of any jungle. No, no, no.”



The narrative voice goes silent, and the screen flickers to Colosseum, you recognize the same lion, though slightly bruised, a few more scars littering its body. The tip of its right ear had been chewed off and there was a look of utter fear in its fear, fear that had shoved the beast into a corner, fighting for its death. The sound of a crowd cheering can be clear from all around the Colosseum. The voice returns as the volume cheering fades away slightly.

“In the late 1800’s, an Indian ruler, the Gaekwad of Baroda decided he wanted to answer the question of whether the lion was truly the most powerful predator alive. Who was a suitable opponent for the formidable lion, you might ask? Well, none other than the Lion’s close cousin, the Bengal Tiger.”

Just then another resounding roar breaks through the cheers, interrupting the narrator. The camera pans out slightly from the cornered lion to reveal a larger, vibrantly painted Bengal tiger, head crouched forward and eyeing the lion cautiously.



“You see, the tiger is a lonely predator, choosing to hunt solo. The lion however, is a social animal, choosing to hide and hunt in prides. Numbers was the true strength of the lion, more important than any strength its muscles produced. A single tiger stood no chance against a pride of hunting lions, but one-on-one? In a fair fight? Who’d win?”

The lion lets out a snarl of its own, switching from a defensive to an attacking stance. It darts forward, leaping onto its hind legs and swiping at the tiger wildly. The tiger dodges the swipe by leaning back, and with one quick swipe, rips open the lion’s jugular. Blood spurts out from the lion’s neck, spraying all over the whites of the tiger’s fur. The tiger lets out a victorious roar, as the crowd goes crazy. The lion’s body slumps to the floor, lying at the feet of the tiger.

“You see, the Gaekwad of Baroda realized that his precious lion was nothing compared to wild tiger. The romans used to battle tigers and lions all the time, and the intelligent bets always fell on the tiger. Hell, even the Bronx zoo was witness to a tiger killing a lion with a single swipe in 2011. As terrifying as a lion might seem, when faced with the true King of The Jungle, he stands no chance.”

The camera cuts away from the two large cats, cutting back to Danny Imperial’s face, which is now painted in the orange and white stripes of a tiger instead. A half smile on his face reveals his right canines, stained red at the tips.

“You see Jimmy, you might have been formidable once. You’re probably worth being wary of now, but you gave up your dominance. If you’d stayed single, perhaps you might have maintained that killer instinct, understood what it meant to have to defend yourself and retain the craving to fight for your life. But you went and got comfortable, didn’t you? You found yourself a pride of bitches and settled down, didn’t you? You let them do your dirty work and you forgot what it felt like to kill on your own… DIDN’T YOU?!

We’re not even going to pretend we’re the first ones to realize this either. Your opponents have realized it in the past weeks and you for sure have realized it at this point. However, will you regain that thirst for blood we’d gotten used to? Perhaps, definitely not on Wednesday though. HAH, you wish I’d let you walk out of there in one piece. You see, Lions toy with their food, they play around with their prey and kill by brute strength. I’m the tiger in your story Caedus. We’re going to kill you with one swipe of our claws. One match, one day, ten minutes, that’s all we’ll fucking need against you. We’ll go straight for your jugular and relish in the lifeblood you spray all over us.

Go ahead, make some pathetic elementary joke about the only thing you’ll be spraying over us is your disgusting cum or something of that sort, perhaps throw in some analogies about viciously sodomizing us with some weird action figure of yourself you keep around, try us bitch. Talk your shit, because once we’re done with you on Wednesday, the only thing your mouth will be doing is slurping breakfast, lunch and dinner through a fucking straw.

You see, we dealt with your old buddy Chaos last week. We sent that fucker packing back to whatever trailer park he lives in with his tail between his legs and his balls somewhere between his asshole and mouth. He thought he could present himself as some kind of school bully? HAH! We shut him down like life does to a middle-aged a still living his high school dreams. Your next motherfucker, you’re next on our list and we’re going to castrate you and turn you into the bitch you’ve become up here.”

Danny taps the side of his temple twice, hard.

“Prove us wrong, we want you to try. We want you to hold your head high in the fucking air and give us a challenge. We want you to fight smart and use your brains instead of your arms. We want you to come at us with all your fucking strength. COME AT US DAMNIT. It’ll only make the satisfaction of taking your throat out so much more tantalizing. It’ll only make smashing your chin into that mat, my leg pressing down on the back of your head with a satisfying crunch, so much more euphoric. Throw everything you have at us and feel your psychosis shatter as we make you realize none of it is enough. If you don’t think you’ve turned into a bitch yet, you definitely will after that.”

At this point, Danny’s mouth is filled with spit. His lips are moist and a little dribble can be seen at a corner. His eyes reveal a sick hunger and his breathing is heavy and uneven.

“We can’t wait to destroy you, Jimmy. We can’t wait to be the reason you truly pack your shit and fuck off from the XWF. We can’t wait to show the world what the new Danny Imperial is all about, and we can’t wait to use you as the catalyst for our continued transformation. We’re waiting for you to come out and say some smart shit, try us Jimmy… Please.”



Danny pushes the camera away from his face, laughing shrilly into the air. The camera tumbles to the floor, and cuts to black abruptly.